KEY POINTS:
Ngarlie Ellis applies the finishing touches to an intricate dot painting, its yellow and ochre patterns depicting an ancient Dreamtime story of a kangaroo spirit visiting a desert waterhole.
The 32-year-old is fortunate her canvas will be sold to a respectable gallery by the art centre in which she works in the isolated settlement of Ltyentye Apurte, 80km down a corrugated dirt track from Alice Springs.
But many other Aborigines are being ripped off by unscrupulous dealers who pay them with alcohol, drugs and worn-out second-hand vehicles, or corral them into squalid sweatshops where they are forced to churn out poor-quality paintings.
Drawing on more than 40,000 years of heritage, Aboriginal dot paintings are eagerly snapped up by tourists, and hang on gallery walls from London to Los Angeles.
But in many cases they are being bought by carpet baggers who roam remote desert communities offering a pittance for works which will be sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
Abuses in the Aboriginal art industry - estimated to be worth up to A$500 million a year - have become so acute that the federal government has launched a parliamentary inquiry. Its report was due next week, but it has encountered such a mountain of evidence that its findings will not be released until June.
Indigenous artists are vulnerable to exploitation because of their poor English and rudimentary education, and because they live well below the poverty line in isolated settlements .
Many are "naive in the ways of non-Aboriginal business", the Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists told the inquiry. They often have no conception of the value of their work, despite the growing international popularity of Aboriginal art.
Paintings by well-known artists such as Rover Thomas have fetched up to A$780,000 in recent years but most Aboriginal artists are surviving on A$1500 a year, the inquiry was told. Popular artists have had their works copied or their signatures faked on lesser-quality paintings.
"More new players have come into the industry because they see there's a buck to be made," said John Oster, executive officer of Desart, which represents 43 Aboriginal art centres in the desert around Alice Springs.
"The demand for good-quality work is incredible - production can't keep up. That creates a pressure cooker situation where people will bend the rules."
About a quarter of the Aboriginal art produced in the central desert region is bought by illegitimate dealers, Desart estimates.
Aboriginal artists are put up in dingy motels in Alice Springs, sometimes 10 or more to a room. Backyard dealers use threats of violence and pressures of debt to compel them to produce dot paintings in assembly-line conditions.
"They keep them in debt by charging exorbitant rates for rooms. The artists are told to produce paintings for bills they're never able to pay off. They don't own cars, so they're stuck in town," said Oster.
The artists are paid around A$200 for each painting, which are then sold for up to 10 times as much to galleries prepared not to ask too many questions. The artists are either unaware of their rights or reluctant to go to the police with their complaints because of an ingrained wariness of white authorities.
An artist who gave evidence to the inquiry on condition of anonymity complained of "backyard slave-labour art operators" and described how elderly and sick Aborigines were crammed into filthy motel rooms.
"The conditions are disgusting," he said. "There is Third World abuse going on. A lot of the artists are abused physically and mentally."
Some are rewarded with alcohol or drugs, including Viagra. "The backyard operators buy a piece of art for A$50 and sell it for A$500. Artists are being paid in grog or clapped-out old cars," said Judy Lovell, from Keringke Arts Aboriginal Corporation.
"The whole industry needs cleaning up. There's no system by which you can tell who's an ethical dealer and who's not. I could rock up in London or Sydney with a bunch of canvases and no one would have a clue who I am or whether I'm legitimate."
The inquiry will look at introducing stricter regulation of the industry, including a code of conduct, licensing dealers, and accreditation of galleries.
Some galleries are already authenticating artworks with microdots which when viewed under a microscope carry the artist's and gallery's names. Cutting-edge DNA technology is also being used to prove the provenance of artworks through the minute quantities of pollen and dead skin picked up by every canvas.
Legitimate dealers and curators also want Aboriginal artists to receive resale royalties for their paintings. Restoring credibility to the art industry is vital because for many remote Aboriginal townships, it is the only source of employment aside from government-run work schemes.
